AddressFinder Update is removing Apartment/Unit info?

Maxwell Lisanti

Hello! This is my first post on here .

I recently became aware of this problem when our Board President (Gulp!) noticed that the unit number of her condo was not included in a recent mailing. When I looked back through her addresses, it seems that in the last couple AddressFinder/NCOA updates, her unit number had mysteriously disappeared. However, her spouse still retained the correct address with unit number on his record (she is HOH).

We format addresses with Apartments/Units on one line like “123 Main Street Unit 1”.

I updated her address manually, adding in the Unit #, and re-ran the Address Report, and lo and behold, the AddressFinder report once again removed her Unit Number, and the unit number of others in her building that I had manually added. However, I would say I don't notice this happening with any frequency - not like every address with a Unit or Apt. # is getting cut off, it seems to be a small cluster of them. But I would like to know what may be causing this issue. I wonder if her address in the NCOA/CASS database lacks a unit number and so the AddressFinder report is just updating to what is accurate in those terms? Otherwise I am stumped. Appreciate any insights from the wonderful community!

Chandra Oliphant

@Maxwell Lisanti
Yikes! I haven't seen this issue but one way to check would be to enter address in the USPS zipcode finder. There may be an issue if it is a fairly new community. This is what happened when I moved to one last year and had to call the utility company and give them my unit number as it would not accept my address online.

Maxwell Lisanti

@Chandra Oliphant
Thank you for this advice! I hadn't thought to look using USPS. There is a listing in USPS both for the unit, but also for the building itself, and I wonder if that has something to do with the confusion…Still a mystery but that was a very helpful suggestion, thanks!

Heather Pauli

@Maxwell Lisanti In the past, I've found that the Post Office actually appeared to have made a mistake with the spelling of a local city in their system that was causing an issue with a constituent's mail generated from our database not getting delivered. I had to suggest they go into their local Post Office to find out why there was a discrepancy, then later found the city name changed when the next NCOA update occurred with our database. USPS isn't infallible.